The Hollywood Red Scare: An Attack on the Labor and Progressive Politics of Hollywood

Abstract

This paper examines the Hollywood Red Scare as one of the most prominent instances of Hollywood's implication in real-life politics. Occurring amid the fear of communist subversion of American society and anti-communist fervor that gripped the nation in the wake of the Cold War after World War II, the event was the Hollywood rendition of the anti-communist crusade. However, the Hollywood Red Scare was not a mere reflection or an extension of the concern of communist subversion and the anti-communist sentiment of the greater society. Nor did it occur to Hollywood by accident. This paper shows that the Hollywood Red Scare was also a response to internal developments, i.e., the challenges from organized labor and progressive politics of the 1930s. In other words, the Hollywood Red Scare provided an occasion to drive out militant labor, its supporters, and other radicals that gained ground during the 1930s. The ferocity of the Hollywood Red Scare was a testimony to the seriousness of these challenges from within as well as the fact that at stake was the control of an industry that had the enormous impact on popular imagination.